An AMD spokeswoman said the complaint relates to stories last week in the German press, including one in the Financial Times Deutschland that alleged that Intel pays German retail chain Media Markt not to stock PCs containing AMD processors. The newspaper cited a letter to a supplier in which the retailer said it would only buy PCs with Intel processors.

AMD filed a lawsuit in the United States last year charging Intel with anticompetitive behavior. In the suit, AMD named several retailers around the world, including Media Markt, that it says agree to exclusively sell Intel-based products or agree to keep sales of AMD-based products at a small percentage of their total sales in return for payment from Intel.

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DELL REVAMPS PRICING: Dell Inc. outlined plans Thursday to simplify pricing and reduce the number of mail-in rebates for consumers and small business as part of the computer-maker’s recent $100 million initiative to improve customer service.

Beginning next month, Dell said it hopes to reduce the number of promotions per product line by 70 percent and the number of promotions for any single product by 80 percent within the next 18 months.

The move comes as Dell shares have hovered near a 52-week low following several analyst reports questioning its future growth prospects and tough competition from Hewlett-Packard Co. and other computer makers.

While Dell saw its revenue grow by 6 percent in the first quarter, HP’s jumped 10 percent. During the same period, worldwide PC shipments grew from 13.8 percent to 14.9 percent for HP, according to research firm Gartner. Dell, meanwhile, saw its share slip to 16.5 percent from 16.9 percent last year.

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BITS AND BYTES: Toshiba said it will postpone the sale of the world’s first HD DVD recorder because of a production delay. . . . Microsoft said antitrust penalties topping $350 million imposed by the European Commission won’t delay the launch of its Windows Vista operating system, already delayed several times and now optimistically scheduled to debut in January. . . . Palm said it will sell a version of its Treo smart phone in Europe through Britain’s Vodafone Group, its first Treo to use the 3G network technology. It will run on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile OS. . . .